martedì 3 luglio 2012

A few days ago it was my friend Valentina's birthday, so I made a cake to celebrate together with all our friends :)

I really like baking sweets, so I decided to start posting here my culinary experiments!

Today's recipe is perfect for summer, I called it "Piña Colada Cheesecake"! (though there is no alchool in it...)

Ingredients for the base:

200 gr of cookies similar to Digestive or Graham's crackers (I used Gran Cereale for a more crispy taste);

100 gr of butter or margarine.

Ingredients for filling:

200 gr of soft cheese like Philadelphia;

400 gr of fresh cream;

50 gr of sugar;

100 gr of shredded coconut;

3 sheets of isinglass or gelatin;

a jar of canned pineapple with its juice.

Optional:

1 or 2 spoonful of flour;

some coconut milk.

Preparation:

Crush the cookies in the mixer and put them in a bowl with the melted butter.

Mix well, then spread the mixture of cookies in a cake pan covered with baking paper (instead of paper,you can use some oil or butter to grease the pan), press the mixture with a spoon to make it solid and uniform, then put it in the fridge for at leasthalf and hour.

Put the isinglass sheets in a bowl with hot water to let them soften. Put cheese, cream (save a little cream, about 100gr, for melting the isinglass), sugar, shredded coconut (if you want the coconut flavour to be stronger, add also some coconut milk), some tiny pineapple bits (very tiny, or they will get tangled in the whisk) and the syrup (I suggest using only half of the juice contained in the can, or else your filling mixture will end up too liquid: in this case you can add 1 or 2 spoonful of flour to fix it) in a bowl and mix them with the electric whisk until mixture is thick and smooth. Take out the isinglass from water, squeeze it and let it melt at low heat in a small pan with the remaining cream, then add it to the filling and mix again to make it uniform.

Remove the base from the fridge, put some half ananas slices along the border (they make a nice decorative motif and help keeping the filling in place), pour the filling into the cake pan, level it with a spoon and decorate the cake with the remaining pineapple slices and some more shredded coconut.

Put everything in the fridge for at least 4 hours, then place the cake on a plate and remove the cake pan.

Here are some pictures of the finished cake, it was very fresh and delicious!

I hope the instructions are clear enough, this is my first time translating a recipe ^_^ anyway if you have any question or doubt, feel free to ask!